Combination Rotary Screen Printing

Converters looking to differentiate their capabilities with exciting and innovative imagery are making combination rotary screen printing their top choice.

Next time you're playing bartender, look behind (literally) the dashing graphics on that bottle of margarita mix. Chances are you'll see a brilliant white or colored background printed with rotary screen. From food and beverage to health and beauty, rotary screen is laying the foundation for some of today's most exciting and innovative imagery.

Since the 1980s, when it was first commercialized, rotary screen technology has found increasing favor in the label and package printing world. The main feature of screen printing—its ability to lay down a bold, opaque ink film on clear, metallized, or highly colored substrates—has become especially appealing with the explosion of film labels and packaging.

At the same time, the extreme simplicity and adaptability of the rotary screen process has made it a natural fit with a new generation of modular, combination web-fed presses. As a result of this marriage of need and convenience, combination rotary screen printing has become a key consideration for printers looking to differentiate their capabilities while exploiting sound and viable existing technology.

"More and more presses are being delivered with combination capabilities, and rotary screen is typically part of the combination," commented John Costenoble, sales manager for Stork's Graphical Print Systems (Charlotte, N.C.). Stork provides rotary screen presses and subsystems, and supplies engineering and retrofits for more than 35 different press manufacturers. Costenoble says combination rotary screen has quickly grown outside its initial pressure-sensitive label market. "Narrow-web printers start out with screen printing because they need the opacity it provides. They use it to print whites on films and foils to serve as a base for the four-color process. But many printers, once they're comfortable with the process, start selling the value-add features of screen."